Many people use landlines to call emergency numbers such as 911. However, cell phones are also used to call these emergency numbers. Unfortunately, calling 911 over a cell phone has its disadvantages. Specifically, when a person uses their cell phone to make a 911 call, the first thing the emergency operator does is to ask for the location of the person making the call. (This is because the calling party's phone location is quickly identifiable when using a land line). Therefore, a need exists for the emergency services to quickly and automatically pinpoint the location of the cell phone. Although systems do exist in the United States to automatically detect cell phone location, such systems are not distributed worldwide. Thus, the need to automatically transmit cell phone location to an emergency responder is lacking in many second and third world countries.
Often times, the person making the 911 call is only able to give a very quick summary to the operator when the situation is urgent. The operator then quickly requests as much information (e.g.: medical information) as can be communicated in a short time period. To have this information automatically sent to the operator would be desirable at a minimum, and in some cases it could be life saving.
Lastly, once the person has made the 911 call, there is no mechanism to inform family members as to their location and condition. It would instead be desirable to provide a system that automatically alerts a person's contacts (e.g.: family members) when a person has made an emergency call. It would instead be desirable to provide a system that automatically alerts a person's pre-selected contacts such as family members (and those physicians or medical providers who provide care and have the medical history of the caller). It would also be desirable for the system to retrieve the medical records/information from the patient's doctor (or other remote facility) and then send that information directly to the 911 operator/response team. The present invention accomplishes these functions and provides other advantages over existing systems as will be explained herein.